SITE REVIEW: All You Need

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

Hey guys, My friends and I recently started up a game blog/review/ awesome stuff site. and i'm looking for some input. You can tell me how nice it looks or whatever, but im honestly looking for some features were missing, something you wish was on the site or something to that effect. IF theres a gaming site you go to that has some awesome things you think we should add Let me know

some info, We are using Wordpress, and the theme we are using is Arras.

Welp here it is.

http://www.aunonline.com

We also have a podcast.

seularts

Graduate

Posts: 153

Loc: Romania

3+ Months Ago

If you are looking for features, than I suggest that you include videos in the main page, with or without auto-play option. Also you should work more on the logo, it doesn't go that well with the rest of the content. Perhaps play a little bit more with the fonts there. In general it is a neat wordpress template, but could use a bit more work on the details.

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

Thanks for the input. i was thinking the same thing, the logo does seem a little out of place, Do you think a full bar logo at the top would be good ? OR just stick with a smaller one ? We did have a youtube video before we re designed the site, but i guess it disappeared.

Zealous

Guru

Posts: 1243

Loc: Sydney

3+ Months Ago

First thing i noticed within with first 30 seconds is the top logo that needs to go, the red puts it out of place and the blocks don't do it justice.

O.k i am back to Ozzu i just spent the last 30 minutes reading articles and booked marked the site. OMG i love this site for the gaming news think i am going to be a regular reader if this site keeps up to date.

i love it for the news but now i could not care what it looks like really great site 1+

edit:a login feature so to keep track of comments and not have to input details for each comment

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

Alright thanks man, We are definitely going to implement a login feature. and the logo will be changed. or maybe just the a color change so its not so "In your face"

And yeah, the site is going to stay updated so dont worry about the content.

We are in the very beginning so we are looking for what our audience wants to hear. If you want to hear about some obscure game or you dont think were giving a particular console any love, let us know at tips@aunonline.com and let us know what you want to see/hear

not sure what to add now but i want to see this project pump soon, i will try and help out with suggestions as much as possible. Keep up the good work

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

Alright, We have implemented a login system, So you may now register an account and login. The logo has still yet to be changed,Thanks for the input, but i dont think we want to go in the whole PC hardware stuff. And ive been thinking about video, but my lack of a video capture device kind of stops that one. We do have a calendar on the right side that shows when games are coming out. I'll be sure to add some more to it.

Zealous

Guru

Posts: 1243

Loc: Sydney

3+ Months Ago

there is plenty out there but with the whole streaming revolution it is the way to go the way i see it, most content is done by somoene else so embed the code into the site even if it is from youtube or IGN just a thought tho.

Now as i registered a account i found that the register_confirm button was white that blended into the background and needed a mouse over effect to see it. i am sure most people can figure it out but i just think it is good to see the direct button.

So i have just registered and it has asked me to go to profile or use generated password which is nice to see, changed my public password and updated profile. Now how to get back to the main site is what i am thinking poking around without changing the address bar. So i suggest some navigation menu from admin section and profile to get back to main site.

Now being the paranoid computer person that i am i know that your using wordpress and down the bottom on user admin panel is your version number v3.1.1, just for that 1 in a million change i would suggest removing them details and making the panels themed not only to make it presentable but to protect public information about your site.

hhmm apart from navigator and button effects everything is working great and i should be checking it on a regular basis, keep it updated with angrybirds stuff as i have a angrybirds web site

Zealous

Guru

Posts: 1243

Loc: Sydney

3+ Months Ago

due to the fact i look at this site daily i find more and more things to pick at like i was trying to suggest something to the web site but there was no contact us feature or submit something to us.

Also i attempted to post your link in a facebook status to help out and all the information from the latest entry on the site turned up which i had to edit out and replace with site details. Not sure if there is some meta data you could add so that it displays the sites details when index is posted in facebook status but the postings them self seam fine on their own.

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

Ah, weird, on our old site we used to have a page that told you how to submit ideas for stories. Well the email is tips@aunonline.com

I added a message saying that on the right side bar.

bluedragon

Proficient

Posts: 453

3+ Months Ago

You can use a plugin called stream video player. Download version 1.3.0 from their website since the new one has changed too much and doesn't work how the original does. http://rodrigopolo.com/about/wp-stream-video

As everyone else said the header needs to change. The style needs to tie into the style of the wordpress theme. Was there a logo with the theme? If so you can go off that for the style.

As for the submit content page, you can use a simple contact forum, create a new page and put it there. You can always modify the contact forum to fit your needs as well.

Bogey

Genius

Posts: 8417

Loc: USA

3+ Months Ago

All right. Here goes.

* The design looks really good. The colors you chose (besides the logo at the moment) and the layout goes really well together. The design is simple enough for the amount of information that is thrown at you.

* Enough content is thrown with the right amount of diversity is given at the home page to keep it interesting. All the major features are visible and easy to find them and to access/use them.

* The top horizontal menu looks good and seems to function. There is a lag when hovering from "Deals" (after that sub-menu opens) and anything else which threw me off the first time I noticed that, but I think that the only reason that happens is because of the sub-menu.

* Nice place for the calender and good use of it. I like it. One thing though, what does that blue circle mean? Maybe put a Key at the bottom defining each symbol you going to use for that calender? That would help people like me.

* I like the favicon you got there... just seems a bit too blocky to me... like the old old mario games with 16bit music that kids used to play.

// Away from the home page and on to the featured page* Good layout for the list of featured. Everything here seems to be self-explanatory. Good job. I like the block layout you got going here. Looks very organized.

* The pagination... where is it? I see the "Older Entries" button, but maybe adding the numbers (as to how many pages there are) would benefit there? I don't know, maybe not. Just a suggestion that I think might help you out. Could be just a wordpress thing.

// Alright then, on to the Reviews page* Same great layout and organization as you got going in the Featured content page. Good thing you didn't stray from there on this one.

* Same type of pagination... just read the previous suggestion about the pagination thing... maybe you don't even need the pagination, I don't know. Just a suggestion.

// Same goes to both, "Deals", "Deals">"Archives", "Stuff you need", "Gaming News" and "Podcats". Good job.

// Alright, actually reading a review... (I chose Mortal Kombat for this one)* You could add some spacing... some padding between the bullets under "All We Need". That would make the content a bit more readable.

* You could possibly center that image at the top... would make the page look nicer.

// The search feature* I wage war on your search feature... it doesn't do it's job. Maybe it's by design, but I don't like it. No matter what I search for, the results always seem to be random that has no relevancy to what I searched for. For example, I searched "ps3" and I got a review on some xbox game as the first result. I also searched a name of a game that is going to be released soon (The Witcher 2) and it didn't show it anywhere on the first page... I didn't go farther then the first page. Maybe fix this if it's fixable?

* Everything else seems look and work great. Good job on the site.

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

Thank you for the review, 1. The blue circle in the calendar dictates the current day. it may be off by a few hours because of the timezone the calendar thinks its in.2. the favicon is a TINY image so its very difficult to get any clarity in the image.3.I will definitely keep the pagination in mind. if its possible we will implement it.4. The whole left justified image on each article is put in there by itself, when we make a post and put a featured image ( the one you see on the main page) it automatically gets put into the post. We aren't exactly sure how to change that, but we will try.5. I just did a search for ps3 and i didn't find anything that didn't fit. Unless ps3 was referenced in the post, Usually it will come up on deal pages that the ps3 version applies to. The search feature only shows what we have written about and since we haven't written about it it wont show up. The calendar is excluded from this search, so anything on there will not show up.

jg333

Born

Posts: 4

3+ Months Ago

Why don't you add some "social" things. For example, add "I like" buttons under games, so people can share their favorite games and so long.

Zealous

Guru

Posts: 1243

Loc: Sydney

3+ Months Ago

been a while but not much has changed from when we last spoke about this project, still suggest cosmetic upgrades but good to see your keeping half updated with the gaming world, i also suggest keeping tags on steam as there been some major stuff you have missed in the gaming world.

But good to see it is still getting updated.

Also some Rss feeds on Major sites would give you quicker posting and less manual regulations of the site apart from approving posts.

Also can users submit their own articles for approval from staff.

capse

Newbie

Posts: 5

3+ Months Ago

Hi,

It looks good, and very clean landing page but there are some issues I like to point out:1- when you resize the browser the image overlaps the right sidebar.2- The menu items below the second google ad looks like not a part of the page3- In my opinion, ads and the content should be distinguished by the visitors but it is really hard in your site.4- Wouldn't it be nice if you had implemented one of your menus in your page?5- I am using chrome and your site doesn't let me do customization, requires IE/FireFox, that's why cannot say anything about inner page(s)6- And could not figured out what the links at the bottom do?

Regards,

LAbrego

brego from LA

Posts: 2856

3+ Months Ago

capse wrote:

Hi,

It looks good, and very clean landing page but there are some issues I like to point out:1- when you resize the browser the image overlaps the right sidebar.2- The menu items below the second google ad looks like not a part of the page3- In my opinion, ads and the content should be distinguished by the visitors but it is really hard in your site.4- Wouldn't it be nice if you had implemented one of your menus in your page?5- I am using chrome and your site doesn't let me do customization, requires IE/FireFox, that's why cannot say anything about inner page(s)6- And could not figured out what the links at the bottom do?

Regards,

Do you really think we are stupid enough to not know what you are doing??